Enter Shikari - 'A Kiss For The Whole World' album review: all of the passion and fight fans expect

They’ve burst back onto the scene with a number of residency shows this Spring. Now, Enter Shikari have released their brand new album.

‘A Kiss For The Whole World’ is the band’s seventh studio album, and first to be created after the Covid lockdown - a period during which music was on hold. For fans of the band old and new, the release of new Shikari tunes is always heralded as a great day, and this new record has all of the passion and fight which the band has come to be known for.

The lead single is ‘pls set me on fire’, a track which has already had its live outing by the band. It implies that a spark is being lit to ignite the full blooded track - and that’s exactly what you get. The song is very much straight in at the deep end.

In chronological order, it comes just after the album’s title track. Kicking off with a raucous intro featuring trumpets and some iconic Shikari blood and thunder, it is a song fitting for their return to music.

On the album creation and ‘pls set me on fire’ in particular, frontman Rou Reynolds talked about how the break from music before writing this track was the longest he’d ever gone.

He said: “Honestly, I thought I was f***ed. I’ve never felt so detached from my soul, my purpose, my f****** spirit. I didn’t write music for almost two years. The longest I’d gone before that was two weeks. I was broken. It’s almost as if my brain had asked: 'What is the point in music if it cannot be shared? What is the point in writing music if it’s not to be experienced with others?' and then promptly switched itself off. ‘(pls) set me on fire’ grew out of that desperation. This song is a projectile vomit of positive energy. Every emotion trapped inside me for two years, finally set free."

‘Leap into The Lightning’ hits back with a techno frenzy of unprecedented proportions, and ends just as abruptly as it starts. However,  this is not before we get a quick 80 second blast of ‘feed your soul’. ‘Jailbreak’ is a bit more of an all rounded Shikari classic. Its tune teases adventure and intensity, before giving us both in spadefuls. We are also given a brief mention of The Dreamers Hotel - an iconic song from Shikari’s 2020 record ‘Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible’.

By now, you know what to expect with Enter Shikari. Yet despite this, the band continues to find new ways of making fans old and new fall in love with them all over again.

Their sound is unique, and for years they’ve been at the top of their game. With the release of ‘Kiss For The Whole World’ Enter Shikari have reminded us all that they’ll not be going anywhere anytime soon.